This cab is occupied with the dance
I’m hailing a cab, and we’re gonna go both uptown and down. Here comes one of those big, rotund older ones marked checker; the kind with the hard springs and those round flip-down seats that faced the rear in the back. You know, like in the movie, “Taxi”. We get in, and immediately start to bounce to the driver’s beats. He is none other than Miami producer Jason Keith or Monster Taxi [Toy Robot Records TOY 42964] and surely, a couple of these tracks will be culled into EP status; there is something for most dance and club music tastes.
This is just fun, all-encompassing Dance music! It is fifteen tracks including three versions of “Memory Wack” (lemme give you a heart attack/lemme give you that wack attack”), and three more versions of the former Ministry of Sound 2006 sureshot, “Boogie Makes a Splash” with it’s great 1970s-style bass underlined hook as they skulk and sing “She likes to get the boogie, sometimes she fills the glass...” This jam conjures my musical time machine to revisit the late ‘70s sound of Al Hudson & The Partners. A very listenable album, but better to do that as you move your feet to the beats in da club. DJs get a lot to like here. For example, “Memory Wack” mixes seamlessly with an old Munich Machine dance/disco hit called “Get On The Funk Train.”
This Taxi also includes a handsome remake of the group Foxy’s classic 1978 “Get Off”. “Meet me under the sheets with two lovelies, so we can get off.” I love it! No worries, but I still am partial to the original 1978 Miami version on that green TK Records label – maybe because I realize that ole school is still the teacher – recognize!
Track two, “Cosmic Love Juice” is the way I like my House music, and that’s no small wonder since it features the trademark “owwoowows” and talkback of Pepper Mashay. I think of the late Sylvester and Two Tons of Fun. This one takes me back with a ‘love vi-bray-shun’.
You get some new-style culture also with two “Ave Maria”s and a couple of “Figaro”s too. This is beginning to sound like a recipe or directions on a hidden treasure map. The Aroma Lounge Mix of “Ave Maria” is my favorite of the two versions; so cool...so sexy! That is my kind of groove, and Kelly Alloco gets her chops off. Meanwhile, my favorite version of “Figaro” is given the anthem/ cathedral/trance treatment; and later on cut eleven, a less fascinating tribal touch.
Next our cabbie Jason, heeds our wishes and heads to “Soho (I Wanna Go Go)” with its narrow and old cobble stoned streets, track Seventh Avenue via New York City as Carl Coccaro reminds right off.
Jumping the long line outside an outwardly nondescript club in the area, we are welcomed into the din by some serious club and most appealing music; the only cut without a companion version, “Amazing Grace”, lucky track thirteen. With smooth vocals by Amy Barbera interspersed, this is the one I program for repeated play; it has elements of electronics, synth-strings and a driving, pulsating heartbeat throughout – my pick-hit. Guess the Ministry Of Sound boys missed that one!
What an enjoyable taxi tour; I cannot recall a better ride. The very busy Mr. Klein even took us by his Myspace house to meet all of his friends, including a picture of my about.com editor himself! Who knew? He also chronicles his recent works from the past few years at www.monstertaxi.com . Never before have I had such a tour in a vehicle like this while writing a review. Such a non-cranky cabbie can only be licensed by this limousine commissioner with five hack stars.
